Power electronics devices are often utilized in high-power electrical applications, such as inverter systems for hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles. Power semiconductor devices, such as insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and power transistors, for example, may be thermally coupled to a cooling device (e.g., a heat spreader and/or a heat sink), to remove non-uniform heat fluxes generated by the power semiconductor devices. Operation of the power semiconductor devices may generate high thermal loads. Power semiconductor devices are demanding increased thermal management performance of cooling devices.
In some cooling devices, a cooling fluid may be used to receive heat from a heat generating device, such as a power semiconductor device, through convective heat transfer and remove the heat from the heat generating device. For example, one device that may be utilized to cool a power semi-conductor device is a synthetic jet device. Generally, a synthetic jet device utilizes an oscillating diaphragm to create an airflow to cool a device. However, the synthetic jet device may generate kinetic energy that is wasted.
Accordingly, a need exists for alternative cooling systems for electronic device assemblies that harvest kinetic energy.